Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad says a RM3 billion plan is to sidestep the impact of an US economic downturn. The finance minister Daim Zainuddin suggests other measures. Bank Negara governor Zeti Aziz, affirms it is all systems go.

But nevertheless questionable, indeed doubtful, is that Dr Mahathir chose to announce this not to Parliament, now in session, but during a press conference at the Parliament House. If he will not take Parliament into confidence, how could Malaysians believe him?

The speed with these measures are decided upon, without consultation and debate, as if out of the magician's hat, and to ignore Parliament, makes it doubly suspicious.

In 1997, amidst the Asian financial meltdown, Dr Mahathir and Daim Zainuddin reacted as now, keeping the nation and Parliament in the dark and announcing to the world as if they had discovered the panacea for the United States' dominant role in the Malaysian economy.

Why does Dr Mahathir and his administration assume that they, and they alone, have all the answers?

What makes the present exercise suspect - and has something to do not with the US economy but to encourage Malaysians to go on a spending spree, if not at the stock markets then at the shopping malls, is this challenged belief that if the prime minister and the finance minister says it, it must be true.

The latest slew of economic and financial projects include RM600 million in oil palm replanting subsidies, the building of 200 single-session schools, 193 community colleges, four universities, and 6,600 houses for the armed forces; car loans for government servants in five years instead of seven; Malaysians are encouraged to go further into debt by persuading them to use their credit cards and making Kuala Lumpur the regional hub for tourism.

Tight times

If this was intended, then it would have been in this year's budget proposals. It also shows that neither the prime minister or the finance minister considered the impact of the US slowdown then, that the US economy is but an excuse to announce all this for reasons that have nothing to do with the country's well-being. It may not be. But does it matter if this is how the market and country interprets it?

Mahathir, at his press conference, adds the RM3 billion to the RM28.8 billion approved for the current budget year. He does not announce this first in Parliament. Especially when it is in session. Nor does he explain how Malaysia could overcome the impact of the US recession with ashopping spree?

One would have thought that in tight times, the savings rate should be the highest possible. Instead, we are encouraged to buy as if there is no tomorrow.

Or is this an attempt to make Malaysians more interested in getting into the stock market so that those who need to can unload the shares - of highly-leveraged courtiers, siblings, cronies - on an unsuspecting public.

This is what happened in 1997. But lightning does not strike twice, especially when its own attempt to unload crony companies on the stock market has met with scant success in recent months.

Hence the perennial question - where is the money for this coming from?

The projects cabinet ministers have announced, recklessly as usual, will land Malaysia into more financial trouble than she already is in. The bailout of the cronies, siblings and courtiers ensures a public debt cannot be repaid.

The billion-ringgit projects are announced with no thought on how they are to be paid for. The banking system is under strain, with the debts to those close to the centre of power threatening to sink it.

Wish list

There is nothing wrong with a huge debt if there is a competent management which knows how to manage it. That is in doubt. Malaysia's claim to prudent and successful management of its resources is based at a time when everyone was beating to its door, pouring in Croesus-like sums of money that produced nothing now but debt and bankruptcy.

Malaysia now pays for the arrogant belief that what goes up must stay up.

Dr Mahathir's proposals therefore is a wish list, not what he can implement. He hopes this would make the people feel that good times are around the corner. But with the KLSE continuing to slide despite a deliberate prime pumping of the KL Composite Index in the last few minutes of trading of the three stocks - Telekom, Tenaga and Malayan Banking - with a weightage of 35 percent of the KLCI's 100 stocks.

This is an offence, but the Securities Commission and the KLSE turn a blind eye.

So, we come back to how reliable the government is in managing the economy, and to turn the country out of its lethargic economic conditions. It is only the government which believes that the economy leaps higher when people are retrenched as businesses tether at the edge of bankruptcy.

The country is in deep economic trouble, but what makes it worse is a government that does not know whether it comes or goes.

Umno, the main party in the governing Barisan Nasional, is in the throes of internal irrelevance. Dr Mahathir, as its president, insists on leading it against all odds, and the Malay is fed up with it and leaves it to its own devices.

Its divisional and branch elections show not a desire for change and reformation but for the tired, unworkable status quo. It suggests a party about to self-destruct.

Bold front

The drift is unmistakable. It is so blatant that all it needs to show are statements as Dr Mahathir made yesterday.

They are made as if he is in total control. He is not, and is damaged by the continuing erosion of support over the humiliation of his former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

It is this David-and-Goliath struggle between Dr Mahathir and Anwar that forced the Barisan Nasional government to lose its sure touch. So serious is this that it is as painful to go forward as to return.

What Dr Mahathir's, and Daim's, statements reflect is not confidence but a bold front which they hope would steel them to move forward. They are, in other words, between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Dr Mahathir cannot make the changes he must to survive, nor not make them. Either way, he is damned. What makes it worse is his isolation - from the country, the government and his party.

His policies, he hopes, would cause the return of the support he lost sharply in September 1998, and a return to the vibrant administration he once proudly led. But he is beyond that. He is squeezed in with these pressures, and what he delivers - speeches and policies - are disbelieved.

The latest economic and fiscal measures are but the latest of this.